Categories

The Importance of Price Transparency – and How to Achieve It

Posted Thursday, August 20th, 2015 by Jeff Wood

Your cable bill. A gallon of milk. A semester of college tuition.

These seemingly unrelated items have something in common: price transparency. To consumers, this price transparency represents a sense of control they often take for granted. As patient financial responsibility rises, price transparency has become important to patients, too. Just like they can decide to purchase more expensive milk at the gas station or wait until they can go to a grocery store, patients want to feel more in control regarding their medical bills.

Of course, patients’ loyalty to their physician practices means they won’t likely shop around like they would for a gallon of milk; however, patients do want to feel a sense of control in other ways. They want to know up front what they’ll be expected to pay, before they receive care. They want to understand what portion of their bill they’ll pay versus payers, and they want options regarding how to pay and when.

That’s why today’s physician practices can increase collections and provide a better patient experience by offering transparency via care estimates at the time of service. Along with these estimates, practices can also provide consumer-friendly payment options such as automated payment plans and online bill payment.

To learn the three steps to increasing collections by achieving price transparency, check out my article on Executive Insight, Happier Patients, Less Debt.